Re: What is the point of octave? (And its presumed buddy, MatLab)

beliavsky:

> > Julian Stoev::
> >
> > > Instead of solving these problems in compiled language (like Fortran),
> > > Matlab is solving this in the interpreted language, thus gaining
> > > programming speed and convenience.
>
> I think it is inconvenient to have a program stop in the middle, due to
> a programming error, rather than at compile time. This happens to me
> more often in an interpreted language than in Fortran 95 using MODULEs
> for interface checking and compiling in "strict" mode.

This is a never-ending argument, we may quarrel for years... It is
even worse than the disputes between the dynamic/static typing
sectarians.

May Fortran give you happiness and wealth. But there *are* people
who insist on being able to verify interactively the environment
upon crash, which is difficult or impossible to achieve in compiled
languages. Interpreters - in my opinion - win almost always when the
efficiency is not an issue, and especially in pedagogic contexts.

And also, if somebody wants to show a minimum of professionalism
after having found a system error, and wants to analyze thoroughly the
context of it, to localize its sources, instead of producing a
worthless collection of raw bugs.

The best would be probably a language interpreted during tests, and
compiled for the final run. Matlab can do this.

Jerzy Karczmarczuk


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